Evaluation of a water recirculation and conditioning system in trout farming. Water Technology and Sciences, formerly

Abstract

The main critical variable of aquaculture development in Mexico has been the availability of water in sufficient quantity, especially with adequate quality. This paper presents a technological development for the treatment of aquaculture wastewater in closed rainbow trout culture systems, as an alternative for sustainable production that favors the generation of high-yielding and nutritious food for the population. The principal objective of the investigation was to evaluate the water conditioning of a compact trout farm with an efficiency that allowed the optimization of water in quantity and quality. This system of trout production is coupled with a wastewater treatment process formed by a mesh filter, a bio-filter, and a sand filter. The density reached during the production cycle was 12 kg/m3 with a biomass of 98.5 kg. With the information generated it was possible to construct regressive type models for estimating the contaminants generated in the cultivation of the biomass. The removal of contaminants in the treatment process was 71.43%, 33.44%, 66.51%, and 88.33% for ammonium, nitrites, TCOD, and TSS respectively. The generation of nitrates was 5.73%. The trickling and sand filters managed to remove total ammoniacal nitrogen at a volumetric rate of 90.64 ± 52.23 and 25.05 ± 22.84 g N-NH3/m3d, respectively. The results obtained with this technological development demonstrate its high relevance for the culture of rainbow trout with a similar production in commercial farms, but with less than 1% of the volume of water per cycle.